Frustrated total internal reflection and critical coupling in a thick plasmonic grating with narrow slits

Author/Creator ORCID

Date

2014-05

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Mattiucci, N.; et al.; Frustrated total internal reflection and critical coupling in a thick plasmonic grating with narrow slits; Applied Physics Letters 104, 221113 (2014); https://aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.4882915

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Public Domain Mark 1.0
This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law.

Subjects

Abstract

We demonstrate the possibility of critical coupling through frustrated total internal reflection in a thick plasmonic grating below the first diffraction order. Differently from conventional approaches relying on the excitation of surface plasmon-polaritons, here we exploit the light coupling with the leaky modes supported by the grating. This mechanism entails a wide-angle coupling and effectively access spectral bands that would otherwise be difficult to probe using conventional plasmonic critical coupling techniques, such as the Otto configuration. Our finding may pave the way to efficient plasmonic bio-sensor devices.